Mikhail Petrashevsky
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Mikhail Petrashevsky  |
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| Born | November 1/November 13, 1821 Russia |
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| Died | December 7/December 19, 1866 Minusinsk, Russia |
Mikhail Vasilyevich Butashevich-Petrashevsky, commonly known as Mikhail Petrashevsky (Russian: Михаил Васильевич Буташевич-Петрашевский) (13 November [O.S. 1 November] 1821–19 December [O.S. 7 December] 1866) was a Russian thinker and public figure.
Mikhail Petrashevsky graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum (1839) and Saint Petersburg State University with a degree in law (1841). He was then employed as a translator and interpreter at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mikhail Petrashevsky is known to have edited and authored most of the theoretical articles for the Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words (1846), which popularized democratic and materialist ideas and principles of utopian socialism. In 1844, Petrashevsky's apartment became home to social gatherings of different intellectuals, which would begin to take place on a weekly basis starting in 1845. These meetings were later dubbed as pyatnitsy (Fridays) and those attending them would be known as Petrashevtsy. The latter came to Petrashevsky's house and use his personal library, which contained banned books on materialist philosophy, utopian socialism, and history of revolutionary movements. Among the well-known members of the young intelligentsia who participated in the Petroshevsky Circle was author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Mikhail Petrashevsky considered himself a follower of Charles Fourier and spoke for democratization of the Russian political system and liberation of the peasantry with their lands. He advocated a long preparatory work among the masses for revolutionary struggle. In late 1848 Mikhail Petrashevsky took part in meetings dedicated to the creation of a secret society.
In 1849, Mikhail Petrashevsky was arrested and sentenced to death. He, together with the other Petrashevtsy, was brought to the Semenovsky plats of Saint Petersburg, the usual place for public executions, and tied to the pole. At the last moment the execution was stopped and it was revealed that his sentence was exchanged for an open-ended katorga. He was sent to Eastern Siberia to serve his sentence. In 1856, Petrashevsky's status was changed to that of an exile settler. He lived in Irkutsk, where he opened a newspaper called Amur in 1860. In February 1860, Petrashevsky was exiled to the Minusinsk district for speaking against the abuse of power by local government, where he died six years later.
